with that I will call to order this meeting of the somerset Berkeley Regional school committee at 6:06 p.m. due notice having been posted pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting
or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or Transmissions may be made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible this evening we have a member participating
remotely and so we will do all votes by roll call um I'll start with attendance of members present Miss ferera present Mr Mado we can Circle back Mr Mado I'm sorry you were muted on my
end Mr Mado we're doing roll call of members present can yours Victor you could just can we put Mr M on speaker phone the Mr Mado you're on speaker phone now
we're having Zoom issues can you participate this way yes this is thank you um Mr Pastor present Miss Solan pres Miss Kettle present and the chair is present also with us this evening our
superintendent of schools Mr Jeffrey schoonover our Chief Financial Officer Miss Raquel Pellerin our director of curriculum Miss Elizabeth Haskell our director of special education Miss Megan Ashton our recording secretary miss Robin mararo and also our principal Dr
Susan brur at this time if you're able could you please rise and join us in the pledge I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation
God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you everyone please note that the next regularly scheduled meeting of this committee will be held on Tuesday March 25th at 6: pm. here in the somerset berly Regional High School
library the first item on the agenda for this evening is the public hearing for the 2025 2026 budget at this time I will open the public hearing I'm not going to the G just open it um and I would um turn
the presentation at this time over to miss pin and Mr schoonover to walk us through the proposed budget for 25 26 okay good evening thank you that
yeah all right so uh starting with uh exactly um what should be the focus of our presentations and discussions regarding budgets our students um when as we go through this uh every decision
we make always has our students in the discussion and at the um certainly the priority of everything that we're doing uh so to go through the the um process and what we'll be disc discussing tonight we'll start out with
our uh review and overview of our school and District goals uh we'll step through the budgeting process what's been taking place the last several months Miss Pellerin will uh guide us through the uh Governor's Aid proposal and I'll share
just some enrollment numbers uh we'll look at some of the uh the major increases and decreases that are affecting this uh this budget or really the increases then the uh the offsets um to to decrease some of those uh we'll
look at some of our uh funds and then uh end up as we typically do with the town assessments so starting out with our school and District goals um the what you see on the left is really the school Improvement plan for Somerset Berkeley
uh areas that the school is focusing on include uh writing across the curriculum uh improving postsecondary planning for all students and then modifying the district accommodation curriculum accommodation plan and um our Student Success team structure to ensure that
all students are receiving their academic and social emotional needs uh the main District goals uh delivering and engaging in relevant um learning experiences for all students creating a culture of belonging uh and similar to
uh number three for the school ensuring that we are addressing uh students academic and seal needs uh third is maintaining the our school facilities and um and then really the the fourth thing that's here is a
student Opportunity Act um and as you as you know with the student Opportunity Act we have to focus on um a a subgroup within the school district that is that has the largest achievement gaps and for us as someone said Berkeley uh that uh
group of students is our students with disabilities uh so it's also uh part of you know everything we do is trying to improve the academic achievement for that population of students uh some of the metrics that we're looking at um to influence and guide uh some of these
school and District goals uh obviously we're looking at mcast is one of the the few standard assessments that we have for all of our students uh we're looking at our Capstone participation and monitoring the uh the increases there same with our internship uh
participation numbers look at Mass core Early College numbers and early college comes in a variety of of different forms uh advanced placement Project Lead the Way dual enrollment uh we're looking at our vocal survey results which our students complete when they take the mcass
exam uh attendance and chronic absenteeism and then our grade nine uh course passing rates so just to recap of our budgeting process we started um off with meeting with Central
Administration um and School administration we tried to align our expenditures to the school Improvement plan we had individual meetings with our content coordinators and multiple School administration we've met several times with our budget subcommittee thank you
for that um we reviewed the anticipated Revenue that supports the budget we analyzed our proposed expenditures we reviewed the program of studies and we reviewed all Lines within our instructional operational and specialized programs all right so taking a look at
our enrollment uh what we're um what you see on the left is the projected enrollment for next year uh in the original presentation for the preliminary budget I did have a 235 to 240 with a corresponding school choice number of 15 to 20 and and for
grade n um I just obviously when we look at school choice that could still be uh something that the committee decides uh but at this point I just to simplify things I kept it to the the standard 15 students that we typically accept into school uh
into the school choice program as freshman which uh corresponds with a projected grade n enrollment next year of 235 students uh just rolling forward today's enrollment of um our freshman sophomores and uh Juniors to next year
is grades 10 11 and 12 uh is where the 188 215 and 252 uh come from as well as the students in our uh really grade 12 plus program 18 to 22 year old transition program we have 13 students projecting for next year as well as 22
uh out of District placements uh the total enrollment as of today at summerson Berkeley uh for 9 through 12 plus is 881 students uh these numbers um uh add up to a projected enrollment
of just over 900 next year I think it's 9003 uh for school choice um what we are uh projecting for next year with if we have 15 grade n along with the uh students currently in grades 9 10 and 11
moving up to 10 11 12 you can see um that that would be 54 students which is exactly what our current enrollment is uh and as I shared with you previously as well just to look at Trends and enrollments over the years uh
grade n u grade n uh the green bar um represents our high needs students I I should probably step stop from the startop from the bottom uh the yellow uh is our English Learners uh so you can see that 10 years ago starting in 1415
to this this year uh or really uh last year uh we had a just a very slight increase in English Learners from 0 to .8% uh the uh blue bar represents our lowincome students um increasing from
10.7% to 20 just about 28% last year uh red is our students with disabilities uh and the high needs is the really the sum of those other three categories so uh any you may have a student who is both lowincome and has an
IEP so that student only counts once not twice but when you look at that our highes population at some of perk has increased from 21% to 35% over the 10 years so in the state of Massachusetts um school districts adopt annually a
budget which is just the general operational fund although um other funds like grants and revolving funds are noted and they are noted in our presentation as well as our budget document the actual adoption is in the general operational fund so when we look
at our estimated Revenue this is estimated Revenue just for the general fund so the majority of the revenue that supports the expenditures come from town assessments um so a little over 66% of the revenue is from assessment
ments um the increase for FY 26 would be 1.5 increase for Somerset and 7.03 increase for Berkeley um the next largest um Revenue source is state aid which is Chapter 70
um we have a slight increase we'll look at another slide um that goes through the variations of Chapter 70 right now it's at the governor's level it still has to go through the house and the Senate um we do anticipate there being changes um Chapter 70 comes on What's
called the cherry sheet what's also um included in the cherry sheet for general fund revenue is the Charter School tuition again this is based on estimates we do anticipate that changeing um the other funding sources that we have would be miscellanous
Revenue the majority of that is Medicaid reimbursement as well as e rate reimbursement and then we have our interest income from revenue that we gain on our investment we're doing actually well trending really well so that is a significant
increase for us um we have no return of excess and deficiencies to member towns so altogether um the budget is a 1.66% increase or a total of 358,000 money that comes to support the
district we wanted to uh show a little bit about our Trends um when I first did this calculation everybody said that it's not going to be it's not Apples to Apples so even though it it starts with
you know we'll see it on the next screen um the enrollment and you're taking the um expenditures your general fund in capital you would think that there is some sort of methodology to the increases but it capturing everything
this is what we see so you can see when you're trending you can see an increase of 7% or you can see a decrease of 7% so when we're building the budget we really don't know what the assessment looks like until the very end so you can see the trends
here so digging a little bit deeper comparing um the town assessments from 25 to 26 you see um the percent percentage of allotment or apportionment of each district is based on the enrollment you have your base
operational assessments you're backing out you really your Revenue sources both your Chapter 70 and all the other Revenue sources you're bringing in your net Transportation cost your net out of District that gives you your total operating assessment you're also bringing in your Capital assessments and
that's how you arrive at that number um the total assessment increase is 39767 7 and as we've seen before Berkeley is 234,50 increase and Somerset is 163
312 now a little bit more about the Second Source um so we briefly touched on the cherry sheet that's provided in the governor's budget there are two um sources of revenue on here that are not part of the general fund and that is
Regional School transportation and school choice and why they're not part of the general fund is because they're considered revolving funds so the other Revenue that goes into the general fund is based on a fiscal year which is um
July to June the Regional School transportation and school choice you have the ability to spend it in that fiscal year or the following fiscal year for that reason they're kept track in um what's called an alternate or revolving
fund but they do support the expenditures um general fund expenditures so a little bit about our um really a summary of our proposed budgetary increases the entire line by line that you would see similar to the
financial statements that we have every month are included in the full budget doc document um it's actually allotted by function codes which is part of on the end of year reporting so also in the
budget document at the very end is the descriptions of each one of those function codes so you're able to really see what's captured in each segment um we're just going to give you a high level of the major increases we are a service organization we are a school
district so the majority of our budget is our employee compensation um and ultimately the largest part of our increas is our um contractual increases along with that we have increases in retirement and our payroll taxes to go along with those
increases um right now we're projecting a 16% increase in employee benefits that is a concern for us we're hoping to have those numbers um soon and we'll let you up to date on that and of course our increase in substitute cost
um the next big biggest bucket of increases would be our contractual services that would be our transportation contractual services within facilities and maintenance and our software and Technology both uh sorry administrative and Technology
software another bigger Drive biggest driver for the increases is our audo district costs for special education and specialized programming and also school choice and charter school which you can see um on our the cherry sheet is also
going up I would just add uh one month ago our budget our proposed budget was around 1.2% uh until we learned of the significant increases in health care uh
while we have a 16% uh increase budgeted in this we have been told that the current rates uh if no changes were made at all to the health plan would be in excess of 30% uh so the 16% is based on expected changes
that the uh town will end up making to the health plan to bring down uh that increase in those costs so what did we do to offset these expenditures uh to balance the budget it's really only two ways you're either
going to increase revenue or decrease expenses so we started um first looking at our special Revenue funds so um all the funds outside of general fund and really seeing how we could maximize These funds um so that we could ease the
um increases in within the general fund it is slightly difficult because a lot of our um grants are restricted in nature but we did uh consult with Department of Elementary and secondary education to really see what we could do and we were able to make some reductions
there by uh utilizing these additional funds for our expenses we also looked at every line item with our in our instructional supplies materials and Equipment um we made reductions there there were some requests for furniture
um and other supports that we just could not honor with the budget uh but we also looked at um prioritizing our rotation and replacement plans um we were able to make reductions there and lastly um when we looked at
everything that was outside of Employee Staffing levels um the last was for us to go and look at a reduction in contractual days for some of our administrative staff we had reduction to our support staff and also reduction of
our instructional staff so this is a snapshot of the other funds that support General operations of the school but are not within the general operational fund so you have your entitlement grants which means
you're we should be getting them every single year Our concern is we're okay for 26 what does it look like moving forward um so we'll keep an eye on that so Ida falls under the umbrella of special education our title grants fall
under the umbrella of Essa not to be confused with Esser Essa is element it is the every student succeeds act we have our St uh State reimbursement funds the two funds that you saw on the cherry
sheet or Regional Transportation and school choice we also have another state reimbursement fund circuit breaker that supports um it's reimbursement for high cost special education and it it supports our high High need Student cost
we also have our local revolving funds um we have the use of school property uh we have technology performing arts and Athletics so really those are self-supporting self- sustaining funds and over the years the funds have decreased and
stabilized um so you don't see much of an increase in these except for athletic but um there were reductions on fees which really helps for uh parental pet so what do these restricted funds support our entitlement grants support
our instructional staff and professional development idab supports special education out of district and extended school year State reimbursement grants our circuit breaker also supports up AED District tuition cost Regional
Transportation is for our transportation our school choice funds offset guidance and adjustment counselor salaries and our local uh revolving funds support the expenditures for which they were they are mandated to support so I I did include this
information uh primarily because I know when Mr larvey was on the a uh the fincom committee years ago he would always sit here and he would ask these questions every year what is the balance in end stabilization so uh anticipating those questions we we just wanted to
include that information uh so we have the three here uh excess and deficiency is currently at a mil 35,000 the 5% cap of our operating and capital budget is a81 so we're just under that 5% cap our stabilization fund is a little over
686,000 and the high school building project fund is uh 532 and the reason why I I included that one this year uh is because we do have some uh some work that will be taking place on our Fields this summer uh the the baseball drainage
um work uh is estimated uh to be about $850,000 or so um the 532,000 uh will uh be entirely used for um to fund part of that and then the extra 300,000 will come from one of
these other two stabilization or end uh then we will also have the turf field replacement uh we don't yet have a price for that but an estimate that we received uh several months ago was in the ballpark of $700,000 perhaps less
than that um so what we will see a year from now is the high school building project fund um no longer here and then that 1.7 million between the other two um would be down to let's just say around 700,000 so in summary you have um the
expenditures of are operating in capital as well as our Revenue again the total budgetary increase is 1.66 which in total is 358,000 702 so we want to just uh also focus on
some of the highlights uh in not just this uh this year but over the past few years uh we have our Civics showcase which continues to expand and our students are demonstrating all of the great things that they are learning and applying in their Civics classes uh
Project Lead the Way our biomedical uh pathway through Project Lead the Way continues to increase we now have I think it's about 125 or so students participating uh in that program our advanced placement uh numbers continue to increase uh between students taking
Tak exams between courses taken and while maintaining uh a high level of achievement uh we have our um our our young internship program but that one is growing uh each year
um our Capstone numbers are continuing to increase uh we've done um uh a really focused job on making uh on building programs special education programs in house which uh allows us to educate our
um some students with more significant needs here rather than sending them to Auto District placements uh and we have uh about 88% of our students uh continuing their education in two uh two-year colleges four-year colleges or
trade schools and just as we uh started um ending with our students including in the bottom left corner uh the celebration that happened last night this was on uh Boston Herald this morning with uh Max lifting Colton and
celebrating their come from behind win last night um so congratulations to that team while I have the opportunity to say so uh and that concludes this presentation thank you Miss col and thank you Mr
schoonover um so at this time for the public public hearing um our process is to um answer questions um take public input um so we can start um firstes the
committee have any questions here um so if folks would like to come on up and I just ask that you um just state your name in your affiliation and then either make your statements ask
questions or any combination thereof good evening my name is Danielle tinum and I am the Science and Technology content coordinator here atbs I am here here to ask you to seriously reconsider uh The Cutting of the math and science positions because because it is not what is best for
students uh numbers wise it was stated that we could afford to lose the position however this would require putting sections at or close to capacity large class sections adversely affect student learning by hindering the development of relationships and teachers being unable to provide
students with all the supports they need to be successful in science classes it also becomes a safety concerned during Labs sections at capacity do not allow students the ability to change levels once the schedule has been set this year I have personally experienced seven
students needing to change classes which is only possible when spaces available in those sections I received the numbers for class requests last week and numbers wise we cannot afford to lose the position without cutting classes which classes do we not run which students do
not get to take the electives they requested I cannot put the Overflow anatomy and physiology students in human body systems because those sections are already at capacity I will need to have teachers teaching outside of their
content area I will need to cut sections of pltw because we have over eight sections of students requests and not enough available teacher sections if you cut the position the requests do not take into account the special education requirements the department has to meet
what what about students who need another year of science or two to meet the graduation requirements but did not request one you cannot just look at the numbers so far we have talked numbers but I would like to remind you that our students are people and it is our students who are most affected by
cutting positions the students who are most affected are our struggling and atrisk students these students need and deserve the most support I understand our student population is decreasing but their needs are increasing exponential eventually I regularly give up a prep to
sit with students during their instructional strategies to provide them support because they are struggling now I would like you to reconsider cutting the science and math positions because our students are worth it to me it is money well spent if it even saves one
student thank Youk Christine Sor um chemistry teacher here at Somerset I also live in town so these budget decreases and affect my taxes as
well um I would like to Echo what Danielle tinum stated that the reduction in a science and a math teacher is severely going to impact our students I have the data from my own
class experience to show that the smaller class size that I have this year versus in years past have helped with students being able to attain a much
better understanding of my coursework but it also allows me to forge those relationships with students that y'all say you want us to have I'm concerned about additionally The
Cutting of our hallway monitors um primarily because we have students in this building that do not feel safe going to the bathroom for
instance when you cut those support staff your cutting the security of our students um additionally I do have a couple of other questions um question not comment um I noticed in
the budget and and anybody who knows me knows that you know music is very important to me and my family but I do have a question regarding the general classroom supplies
the item for marching band at $10,200 and the show choire educational supply for $31,500 which surpasses the science supply line
item I'd like to know what those expenses are for and if any of those expenses or how much of those expenses are being offset by um the user fees I don't know if you have an answer
to that so the user fees um are consistent really from year to year so when you're looking at what was historically used so Mr Young has
put in certain expenditures for his shows so if you're looking at performing Ops those expenditures are the money that is spent on his supplies and materials for the shows and the revenue offsets it so there is no offset to
really the general fund that hasn't already been offset in those expenditures now that makes sense so we're still budgeting $41,000 for marching band and show chire which are extracurricular
activities yes fabulous uh additionally um rsro um I am totally in favor of having our SRO just putting that out
there my question is I have a couple of questions but the most important one is who's in charge of our SRO who tells the SRO where to go um as
far as for instance you're cutting cafeteria monitors does Dr bellford get to tell our SRO that he's needed in the cafeteria like our SRO at the middle school is in the cafeteria during lunch
time who does evaluations on our SRO so there are couple of questions there the principles do have the authority to inform the SRO ask the SRO what to do
where to go yes uh according to the mou for the uh that exists between the police department and the school department uh the SRO have two supervisors the superintendent and the police chief okay I'll be sending you an email
I'd like the copy of thatou um I'd also like to know um relative to our SRO again um just lost that
sorry um I understand that our SRO is currently in our budget that he is an is he an employee of the somerset school department since we pay his salary um yes he's an employee of the somerset
Berkeley Regional School District okay as is the town of Somerset as a Somerset police officer we pay his salary we pay his salary therefore he should be if he's in our budget he should be considered an employee of Somerset Berkeley Regional
High School if he is an employee of the suet Police Department then the salary should be at the police department and he should be assigned to Somerset Berkeley Regional High School in my opinion but if he is
an employee of Somerset Berkeley Regional High School then why is our SRO not in this building every single day and why is he doing training during school day at the police
department where does he work we pay his salary I can say in my experience uh with other districts as well that there often there's some variations in M us but it is fairly standard that um an SRO is of course an employee of the police
department they answer to the chief often a sort of a dotted line also to either the principal or the superintendent that's fairly standard um in all the districts I've worked in sro's are um they the salaries either
entirely carried by the school district or partially or often shared with the police department different districts have different arrangements and that the ongoing training of an Sr is part of just like PB for a an educator and so
it's not I don't know the details of what you're referring to but those types he's not he's not going for PD to be an SRO he's giving PD on taser use or whatever to the police department so I don't know the details of his specific day-to-day
but I will say that it is not at all unusual for um SRO salaries to either be absorbed by a district or shared with the department and that every SRO arrangement I know they always report to the police chief first and foremost with sort of a collaborative reporting
structure to the administration well I think it's terrible that you're getting rid of our cafeteria monitors and our hallway monitors which are less than .1% of this budget for student safety but
yet looking at the salary that our SRO has and I'm not saying that he's not needed I'm saying I think that salary should be shared more fairly with the police department and get the people that run
this building successfully for the student safety back in this budget including our Science and Math teachers because believe me next year I do not want to come to a school committee meeting and hear you complaining about the math and science mcast
scores because school class sizes are larger and we cannot service those reluctant Learners those struggling students as well as we can when we have smaller class sizes especially since you
got rid of our CP level and have put CP and ACP students in the same classroom we were told when that happened that our class sizes would be small and manageable to support those Learners and this budget does not
support that I hope you're happy with that next person for public input a long does that Berkeley take the a long way around I just want to cut through all the people have you ever known me not to take a long way around good evening everybody so for
starters I I have to say that I'm having some serious Deja Vu uh Vantage points a little different but still a lot of deja vu U one really quick observational question um I noticed on page 20 um that the variance in budget year-over-year is
358 72 and if we look at page 21 which is the break down of the assessments the assessment change adds up to uh it it there's a $9,985 might have just found you 9,918 bucks it's not going to save a hallway monitor
but uh yeah know I don't know with what we pay them might help a little bit uh a couple things uh first thing uh as I was going through great job I know how hard this job is I know that you guys look forward to this like a funeral so uh um I always
did anyway um so I appreciate everything that you guys went did um to put this together I know there was a lot of uh really super fun meetings that went on for hours and hours and hours and a lot of very difficult decisions so um I thank you guys for doing the job I uh I
know how hard it is um I noticed that our enrollment uh year-over-year is down 6.17% is that an anomaly or a trend just you want to address the the enrollments in both school districts are decreasing okay uh and in
fact I don't want to uh get too deep in this but I have spoken with superintendent Ryan she's recently shared some information with me on the current k through eight enrollment uh in Berkeley I want to share I want to look at that also with the somerset K through
8 just to project um knowing the the number of students who normally go to Bristol uh Crystal Agy and Diamond um because we saw uh and I know you've done this analysis a one percentage
swing in enrollment um means an awful lot to the town's assessments y uh and we when we look at um the history of the assessments here we see these flipflops almost every other year um and that's
strictly due or almost entirely those are Normans ship so that is something that we really want to look at that I I really want to look at because I don't know with both districts having decreasing enrollments um I will say my concern is
that somerset's uh enrollment might be dropping faster than Berkeley's well that's at least a concern maybe not uh a guess yeah and if that's the case um how is that going to affect these assessments 3 years 5 years 10 years
from now so I do want to I'm very anxious to uh to do that work But to answer your question it is definitely a TR okay is the increase in cost per students uh of 99.9% for the
citizens of Somerset and 99.6% for the uh the good folks of Berkeley is that also a trend or is that an anomaly because what we're seeing is a decrease in students which um you just confirmed and I spoken to superintendent Ryan so I I sort of knew what was going
on on our side of the river um that there's a general decrease in the uh student enrollment but that's a pretty significant increase in cost per student year-over-year so do we continue to see that as a trend because as you're probably aware there's challenges in
Berkeley especially um this year um last year there was some reasonably significant cuts to our K to8 school district and they're staring down a very similar uh situation this year so there is some concern um especially when we see you know sort of the disparity so I
just was looking for some guidance and some uh some some thoughts on what we can expect in the years to come you know the override which we all fought so very hard for um doesn't last forever and this year's increase does put some strain on it um and uh with that said I
think it's very important to note that the override only has lasted as long as it has because of the hard work of the folks that have sat at that table and trying to keep the budget um in line for a very long long period of time they've exceeded all expectations and therefore the override is going into its seventh
year when we projected it we last six and it still has you know uh it still has some meat on the bones it's got a ways to go get so um kudos to them it's just this year is a uh is an unusual increase in the face of what we're experiencing on the K8 side so just
looking for some some thoughts I don't have an answer for you for that but I will look into it and S I will let you know okay um and I think that's pretty much it thanks thank you Mr guys tabi mccroan selectman from the
town of Berkeley um I want to Echo Mr L's appreciation for all your hard work into this budget and I know cutting things is never fun for anybody and that's not what anybody's goal is when we get into doing all these jobs um just looking at your budget is very similar
to the town of Berkeley's considering your entire budget is almost the entire town of Berkeley's budget for operating cost so um fixed costs have increased like crazy for you guys as well as for us but um for the town of Berkeley this
year we are looking at cutting another 10 positions out of our K8 School District we had to cut eight last year um and when we cut a position it's the only one we have so um we don't have art and music in our middle school anymore more and we are again looking at art and
music now in the elementary school with quite a few other positions and um don't have any we're scrambling right now to try and find any way to save any of those positions that we can so every dollar that you guys have been able to cut out of your budget is very appreciative because it you know comes back to the
town of Berkeley right now um we're hoping to be in a completely different financial situation in the next couple of years we do have a plan um your the Berkeley bard of selectman is working really really hard to change some things for the town and hopefully bring in some more Revenue so that way we don't have
to ask you to cut so hard in years to come um but again all those votes have to happen on Town floor in order to make those changes to make that progress for the future of Berkeley um so I just wanted to thank you and for the people who might not understand Berkeley's
situation and where we're at and how dire our K through 8 situation is um just to to highlight those points and we asked our town at the last two Town me meetings consecutively at at our regular annual and then special town for debt exclusions so we had to do a debt
exclusion to support Bristol Plymouth which the townly voted down but we were outvoted by the region um so we if we didn't we'd be in such a worse shape than we are right now so we were able to pass that and then at special town meeting we were able to pass for the build of a new elementary school um
because the one we have is pretty much condemnable um the kids the elementary school children if it rains there is you know a quarter an inch of water in some of their classrooms just cuz it's coming up through the floors because the school is sinking so we're just crossing our fingers it makes it to to the new build
that we passed um and so we are looking at more asks from our town in the the upcoming couple of Elections and and town meeting cycles that we're about to have um but just bearing with us this year and making the cuts that you guys have has made made a big difference for
us and the police that we can give in this direction we can at least try and save a little bit for ourc through now that's really struggling so thank you for all your hard work thank good evening my name is mulsa Ryan I'm the superintendent for Berkeley
Public Schools I recognize uh the awkwardness of me standing here in front of you tonight um because you know uh it's it's uh not my school committee it's it's a
superintendent schoonover so um I want to recognize what a ridiculous world we live in in which school districts are having meetings like this to figure out
how to get every last dollar and because every person in this room would fully fund education and everything that our students need without question and it's such a a difficult position for school
leaders to be in for school committees to be in to have to make decisions financially um as opposed to what is truly right for for students so um I I think this is just a terrible place to
be and it's it's terrible for for Berkeley to be in the situation um what I did say to Mr larby when I walked in was um Somerset Berkeley Regional High School is not the reason for Berkeley's
problems uh the town of Berkeley has some figuring to do and they are working on a really uh excellent plan to move forward in a way that we're not going to be in this position for for future years
the problem with the K to8 District district is that there are so many factors that influence the K TOA District that are not um our they're not anything that we have control over uh
Bristol Plymouth Bristol Agy the Regional School District you know the other departments in town all of those things play out and at the end of it all is what K8 is um Mr laraby doesn't know
it but I used a quote in my budget presentation uh last night that said my daughter had an excellent education in Berkeley but it's not the same district that she went to because every year it's a little bit less um and that is not
your responsibility but every piece of of Berkeley uh ends up impacting K to8 uh we are in a $600,000 deficit we have suspended every
offset account that we could to a dangerous place uh that is really difficult for us to to be in so um I'm not here to ask you to adjust your budget and in support of of Berkeley um
here just so that you can hear our story and understand what the experience is for the Berkeley students that come to you every day because it's a little bit less every year the Berkeley students are going to be a little bit less when
they show up at Somerset Berkeley High School um because we are cutting things that we shouldn't ever have to cut we are facing class sizes that will drive up to 28 or 29 for elementary school
children next school year um if we have to make the reductions that we have now with all that said we have a lot of um opportunities of of Hope for for how we are going to uh kind of stop the bleed
for FY 26 if you will um but I just appreciate you hearing Berkeley's story in what a horrible horrible world it is that we have to sit here and count dollars for children and for Education because this is not the place that we
should be in thank you [Applause] um good evening everyone are you able to hear me I'm not sure I'm Neville Morgan Barry and I think this is deja vu again Christian
George Victor Mado Miss Vicario 25 years ago maybe one or two other people here were standing here and having the same conversation about money and I've been waiting 25 years please don't take it the wrong way I've
met some wonderful people for this to implode it's $11 for eggs it's $10 for a gallon of milk only thing that's kind of cheap right now is gas which is kind of ion it because we have more electric cars on the field
than we've ever had before we can't afford to maintain what we build and we can't afford to maintain what we have right now and I don't know the nice woman who said before but she she said it's not somerset's responsibility it's the United States of
America's responsibility to ensure that all of us get an equal education and I'm really sorry that your budget is imploded but I warned about this I know chrisan Chris Sor excuse me did when the power went out on the last remaining
power plant I don't know how you're going to fix this the taxes you're at what $28 million for the budget is it 21 million that needs to be like 36
million your Chrome books are $400 a pop to replace them and fix them is another hundred bucks there's simply no way unless we figure out without yelling and screaming and harping and taking blame and throwing ourselves into the
Taun River how we're going to do this but I can tell you right now I am old and I am tired and if you caught one more person in the English Department the science
department the hallway monitors and I have to break up another fight doing the Holy Trinity of breaking out the hair and the nails and the teeth between four girls that are fighting over their girlfriend I think I'm going to lose
it so I'm politely begging and not through taxes I don't know if you have to Triple Regional a maybe call of Fall River they have a $300 million new building and ask how we're going to do
this because I know that we teachers that are 50 and over are top heavy in your department it's about $160,000 with health insurance and my almost six figure salary I worked a quarter of a century 4
oh no I'm just under I think and I know we're topheavy but if you cut Miss Williams in the elll department I'm going to have to teach that class probably and I can't speak five
languages I just can't I could speak sarcasm and swearing but I don't think that counts so if you cut the hall monitors if you C cut the Lunch Ladies If you decide that you don't want to put money
in the gas tank of the buses I understand I pay taxes in two states and Su in one country and I don't want to pay taxes in that country but at the end of the day this nice young woman on my left is going to know she's been cheated and I take full
responsibility for that I cheated her because I couldn't give her what she needed which was the SAT prep program that was cut 15 years ago the mcats program that was cut 12 years ago the reading program that has almost no
reading teacher now and yes all these programs are doing beautifully but that Capstone project needs three more teachers the new one that just came out needs another two and if you do this your property
values will tank while that train in Fall River comes in and brings up all these student or these people from Boston and they're high maintenance kids okay so if you look at page five 866
students page five of this document says that there are more complex needs than ever in the last two days I have had a conversation about suicide and I've had a conversation about eing disorders and why I can't get out of bed
because I want to throw up instead of come to school that's not my pay grade and when you cut the therapeutic needs of students then who am I going to call because I can't legally say y it's nice
to hear that you're throwing up but I can't listen to you anymore and there's no one to send you to so this big beautiful building which is now losing books is turning into something that we
cannot maintain and money sucks I hate talking about money do you know how I talk about money Southwest Airlines points if I can max out my credit card and not tell my husband I think that's a good budget year so I thank you for
doing this because I wouldn't be able to do it I'd just be like spend it all find another one why because it's our kids and it's 25 plus years and the Next Generation who's not coming
here I know seven teachers who have in six years done the Italian and walked out without the two week notice and I'm coming close to it the only reason I'm still standing here you lucky Souls is because I have a blowout fight with my husband and he won and I
had to come back I want to be a housewife I am tired so my last statement the systematic dismantling of education at all levels federal state and local has to be
stopped and replaced with love and when 70% of your teachers K through 12 are female and I said this 25 years ago when I was a young idiot naive Nev our women please stop abusing us I don't
even care anymore if the toilet doesn't flush on the second FL cuz the automatic button doesn't work cuz I know the plumbing is not going to be fixed I'm just glad it still flushes that's how much we women and the
men feel in a district and in a society whether you're republican or democrat or Mickey Mouse when you wake up every morning and you realize that you might not save the kid today because the hallway monitor wasn't there and you didn't get to him fast enough that they
bolted for the door so I love everyone even of you hate me for the love of popsicle sticks find the credit card and swipe it easier said than
done thank you I live in Pucket I can't vote you're so lucky thank you um up next is my colleague Miss Tracy good evening before I there's one question that I
would like to ask um well first I'll introduce myself I'm Tracy Franco madas I'm one of the school adjustment counselors here at high school and I was looking at the proposed budget expenditures and on page 16 um I have a
question about the first line item under the guidance and adjustment counselors it looks like there is um for next year a proposal of a cut of 8 in the salaries of our department um the last article I read
said that it was going to be a guidance counselor um I have concerns about that but that number um is confusing to me could you specify what that number means for our department so you look at the4
number so that does include the reduction of one counselor but then that's also um the way the school choice money is applied to support the salaries of members of the counseling department so there's a portion of that there as
well um so it's school choice Revenue in addition to that okay so you are proposing a a reduction of one guidance counselor I'd like to express my concerns about that um I
would ask you um strongly ask you to please reconsider cutting a guidance counselor um because they have a case load of students they work directly with students and right now the ratio um of
students to guidance counselors is about 225 to1 um as some of you know um Masa and me ask recommend that the ratio be no more than 250 to1 if we go down to three guidance counselors that puts our
ratio closer to 300 to1 which would not be in compliance with what Nas and NASA nett Association of school counselors um recommends so I have concerns about that um also because the um counselor who
whose position is proposed to be cut Works directly with about 225 students I have concerns that that would also impact the Department's ability to help the district and the school reach the goals that you set the district and
school Improvement goals on page two um under each category School category District category and metrics there are at least two things that directly relate to the guidance and the counseling department under School you mentioned
improve postsecondary planning for all students that's a huge part of the guidance counselor's job so adding to the case loads of current guidance counselors and eliminating a guidance counselor who has a um case load again
of over 200 students would impede or would hinder would make it more difficult for the Department to reach that goal um of the school and District also number three unders School mentions seal needs um cutting a guidance
counselor goes count is counter to that goal um under the distric gos you've mentioned again seal needs and safe schools um part of safety is psychological emotional social safety
and we all know having more counselors leads to more um psychological and social safety under metrics you mention internship participation Early College numbers attendance and chronic absenteeism and passing rates for grade
n these are all things um and mest these are all things that a guidance counselor with a case load of students deals with directly every day um so please please reconsider cutting a guidance counselor
who has a case load um because that job is is very important for our student students it directly affects students every day and it affects the schools and District schs thank you thank
you hi my name is Liz Clement and I'm a special a teacher here at the high school I've been teaching here for about 10 years I also have two kids that are at North Elementary so I kind of see all levels with this um I just wrote a few things down that I just wanted to share I have many
concerns about cutting the support services and staff that directly impact our students as a special ed teacher I can really only speak about instructional strategies classes c talk classes and small group classes for those of you who don't know the small
group classes are classes where all the students are on IEPs um so often we look at numbers but I kind of want to refer back to what Danielle tinum was saying students are more than just numbers I teach instructional strategies
classes now if you look at these classes on paper it doesn't look bad to have 10 students in a class that looks pretty good it's me and my par and 10 students um but reality is very different from what you see on
paper every single a block 4 days a week this the head of our science department Daniel tinum comes into my instructional strategies and works with the students on their physics this is not because she has nothing else to do it's not because
she's bored it's because we have kids in that class that need as many supports as they can possibly get these kids are struggling with learning disabilities with attention with motivation with effort with
everything having me and my parents and Danielle helping them is not enough you would think it would be but we can barely get them to have their heads above water when it comes to physics and that's just physics never mind all the other classes this isn't something that just
happens a block this is happening every block I see special ed teachers I see General Ed teachers just putting everything that they can into helping these students be successful and it's still not enough and it's I don't know I I can't even imagine what it would be
like to cut more staff because right now we're not even able to serve the kids that we have um I've been teaching for 20 years in three different districts and at this point I can safely say that the student needs are increasing more and more
students are needing onetoone support such as in this instructional strategies class and I think this is something that we talk about all the time we hear we always talk about ever since Co kids have more needs and we we openly say that but then to be taking away services
and supports just goes against everything that we're saying and everything that we're learning about these kids from this like Co Generation Um like Mr schoonover said we're keeping more special ed kids in the district which is wonderful and a
lot of that we're doing through our TLC program that we have here at school but having more TLC kids in the general setting which is wonderful have them at the school we're needing more staff and supports to accommodate them and I think we're kind of struggling
with that um my small group English class that I teach with Miss Barry who was just up here has four kids on four kids in the class now if you looked on paper four kids and two teachers it's pretty good ratio but each of these kids is in the TLC program and they need one
toone support sometimes just getting them into the class and having them come to class and have their heads up and listen is a victory um and there are so many days that I'm so glad I teach with nille this
there's so many days that we're just like how are we going to get kids to pass the mcast to graduate from high school to be ready to go into the workforce and to be ready for whatever's After High School and that's four kids that we have just yeah and it's it's a
struggle every day I cannot imagine not having the Two of Us in there I can't imagine taking those supports away this CL for next year or else um another example is the ninth grade co-taught physics class this year
there are 17 kids in that class doesn't sound so bad we could have 25 kids in the class we could have 26 27 but 16 of those kids are on IEPs and the 17th kid is on a 504 I don't even really know how we're allowed to do that but we do it
this year is not an anomaly this happens every year in this Coop class two teachers are not enough not only are we trying to get them to pass the class but we're trying to get them to pass the physics and cast also I think the math department head
Andy Lawrence said this a couple weeks ago but we have math teachers doubling as special ed teachers to accommodate the needs of the students these are just some examples of us just being so stretch thin to accommodate all of the kids that we have
and all the services that are needed I understand that kids that cuts need to be made and I'm not naive to this I don't think anybody is but we should not be making cuts to the staff that are directly impacting kids we should work elsewhere but don't be
taking away the staff that really truly make a difference on a day-to-day basis with the kids one of this is just on a personal note so my kids go to North and very happy at North and one of my kids is not in an IP but he did struggle with
math and last year he worked with an interventionist and this year he's in fourth grade and he doesn't work with an interventionist and he just got a math test back today and I think he had like their gradings a little bit different out of four but he got like a three plus or something he is so proud of himself
and I know that working with this interventionist last year made such a difference with him and he would come home on the days that he met with her and would tell me how happy he was because like he was finally learning finally getting math and he'd always struggled with it just like with the computations and he was always super
embarrassed in class when they would ask him what's 7 plus 4 and he'd have to be cting and now he doesn't need that he doesn't really need that service anymore and he's you know he's kind of caught up to his peers and it just is heartbreaking to me because I know that
when cuts are made it's people like the interventionists it's people that are working directly with the kids that are always the first ones to be cut um I don't know and I just want you to know as a parent and as a teacher in this District it really makes a difference to
have those teachers working with your kids working oneto one with them and I think it would be such a disservice to them to be cutting any of those positions so if we really care about the kids and we really want to have the kids' needs number one I think we really need to think about where we're making
cuts thank you thank you anyone else for public inut sorry nothing I like better than a Podium so I think it's uh important to uh to note as you go through this budget
um you guys made some really difficult decisions that weren't just limited to um a handful of teaching positions there's several secretaries that are cut out of year there's a there's a lot of uh sacrifices made just to have this budget come in where it is so um I know
that uh you guys have been sitting there for an hour um you know catching a whole lot of darts I know that this was a difficult budget to do and I know you guys made the best decisions you could make but I just thought it was important to point out that um the pain is pretty well spread across the budget there's a
handful of areas where you guys are eliminating computer programs and things of that nature there's there's a lot of sacrific made in the so I just thought it was important to say that and I hope I really did find nine grand that would make me so happy thanks thank you
than anyone else anyone on the [Music] committee no okay um in that case I can close the public hearing um I know if I a motion for
that just in case sure um a motion to close the public hearing so moved second okay oh please I would note for the record that Mr bado was having difficulty hearing us so he dropped off at 6:15
p.m. um all right so motion by Miss prer and seconded by Miss Solon to close the public hearing okay um oh well he's not on he's not on the phone anymore so I'll leave I opposed so
voted okay um so um just um on behalf of the committee I would want to I would want to thank all of you for being here um I know there's prob nothing you'd rather do on a Tuesday evening than talk about
school budget um and um I think I can speak for all of us stop me if I can't when I say that um no one um gets any pleasure out of um having to make difficult decisions about
how to how to most effectively utilize the um resources that we have available to us which I think um one thing we can all agree on is that the resources aren't adequate and if um when you have
a correct me if I'm wrong but when you have a Chapter 70 formula that indexes for inflation at under 2% um you have cities and towns across the Commonwealth who are faced with the exact same circumstances we have here
and um in many cases um the municipal districts have it even worse um Somerset K to8 and Berkeley k to8 for instance do not get the benefit of a regional transportation reimbursement um what's our regional
transportation is over 200 yeah over $200,000 so we um although those of us on this committee are obviously tasked first and foremost with representing the
district um we are also very cognizant of the fact that every student in this building is also or beforehand a student of Somerset K to 8 and Berkeley K to 8 and that the health um of all of our you
know those districts come together because every stud the students all end up here and we want them to come here um you know as well prepared as they can be and we want to provide them with the best education you can um so I know
everyone here cares deeply about um all our kids kids and about education in general and there are a lot of things to be worried about frankly every day there is a new um headline um and you know Federal funding is something that is
we've been able to rely on and it's questionable right now and that is something that I think the governor addressed today 62 billion state budget 16 billion of that is um federal aid
and that is anyone's guess what may happen now that's not all educational aid but a good chunk of it um so we're all worried we're all concerned we all want the best for our kids none of these decisions are easy we're also very cognizant of the fact that we're talking
about real people not only impact to kids but teachers um and all of the staff um we understand that none of this is just about the numbers unfortunately um we have to work within
the numbers that we are we are given um and you know local tax revenues have to be spread across a variety of needs and interests and education is the largest one uh but it is not the only one it's obviously our job to advocate for it and
I want to thank the members of the committee for do for taking that responsibility very seriously um so you know with that said um if you want
to um exercise or put some pressure on folks I would urge you to contact the folks at the state level um as they are looking at the B they're in the budget process and put as much pressure as you can I know we do and we talk with them
regularly um about um the budget process about Chapter 70 about the funding formula and about the fact that the inflation rate alone when we are looking at increases of healthcare at 16% which is optimistic um when we're looking at
Transportation increases in the double digits um there's a lot that we can't control unfortunately and frankly we talk about the price of eggs and inflation in our everyday life we know what it feels like um school districts energy
Transportation not to mention contractual other the contractual obligations the I think it's 1 point I don't know what the chapter 7 1.4 it's some it's some gross number it's just like not even close to what we need it to be that's not a Somerset Berkeley
problem that's a state by problem so call the folks on Beacon Hill and ask them they need to figure out um they need to have the will CU they really have the power to adjust that um that's not to to say we don't have a
responsibility to but those we don't control chapter 7 and that's huge so um but thank you to everyone for being here um and we will take um all of your input into consideration this process is such
that um we have uh the committee voted approval of this preliminary budget this is step two where we have the public hearing um we could vote um on the agenda
tonight to approve the budget number as presented or to amend it um I would suggest and it's up to the pleasure of the committee that given that we are we have we do have a quorum but we are missing three members of our
committee this evening um I would like to give them the opportunity to hear the public input is this being recorded thank you sapv um and I would like um I would like to table the approval of the
budget um we have a budget subcomittee scheduled for next week Tuesday um on Tuesday I would like the budget subcommittee to convene on that date would be my suggestion
um consider all the public input and if there are any updates we have from the state or whatever else we can consider and then and place the um approval of the budget on the March 25th agenda that
would be my suggestion and a pleasure of the committee do I have a motion to I'll make that motion to table that item okay second agree I think it's only fair that the entire committee gets to hear all the public info and we can take another look
at this I mean I would like nothing more than to add every single thing back in but that's not feasible unfortunately with the way the budget is um so I mean we we really went line by line cutting Tech that we don't need we really try to
cut every single thing before cutting people uh in positions but uh be more than happy to go back and I I agree there are four of us here but I think the remainder should have the opportunity to have their say also and three yes
please yeah also as well I thank the Berkeley officials for coming here tonight and letting us know some of the issues they have in in their town but I mean we have similar issues in our town unfortunately um I think for the last couple of years we were kind of hoping
and praying that prism would come in and solve a lot of our Revenue problems because we do have Revenue problems here in Somerset as well um I agree with Miss Ferrera yeah we'd love to have everything back in the budget but um I don't think it's
feasible right now and I think the subcommittee did an excellent job taking some surgical Cuts here in the budget and unfortunately I don't see the economic picture getting much better in
the next couple of years in Somerset um I say that as Haven been on the ANF committee here for the last 10 years so I have a pretty good idea what's going on on the town side I'm still learning a lot with education I'll admit that and um any of the teachers
that spoke tonight I would ask you to reach out to me and express your concerns and further details I would love to hear from you and learn from you um what's needed but unfortunately there's going to have to
be some you know cuts across you know in the school department and other departments within the town of Somerset and I kind of feel it's the same way Berk from what they they stated tonight and to Echo Miss Andrew's
comments um it's not a Somerset berly problem even though we have our own unique individual struggles there's a lot of you know economic struggle here in Massachusetts and and there's a lot of economic concern to right now in the
country um you know we hear every night on the Nightly News about a tariff War basically in that could you know cause another year of inflation like we had 2 or 3 years ago 8 or 9% and that could be detrimental to you know all
our you know our workers salaries our taxpayers salaries and um you know I think we have a couple of years of of difficult times ahead and we have to be cautious now with what we spend so that
we don't have to make more cuts for the next couple of years thank you Mr past anyone else okay so I think so we've gone ahead and on tonight's agenda under budget and financial we've gone ahead and tabled
item two approval of the budget um we'll convene one more subcommittee meeting and then we'll move that item to the March 25th uh meeting I do think it would be fine because we actually have voted this at the last meeting but I think we can reaffirm that um the first item on the
agenda under budget and financial would be the approval of the use of the alternate assessment formula so at this time I would entertain a motion that the district use the alternate alternative sorry assessment formula as outlined in the updated Regional agreement as opposed to using the statutory
formula I have a motion by Mr pass act do I have a second second second by Miss fer we'll do a roll call vote Miss Solomon I Mr Pac i m Perera hi and the chair votes I the next item on the agenda um the policy updates for a first reading and a
possible waiver of the second reading um in your packet um there are five policies I want to thank the policy committee I think this is the policy committee right here I would like to thank the policy committee for convening and for um
moving these to a reading um and don't know if does anyone um I know some of these are time sensitive so are these all a first reading yes we discuss last week okay and did anyone you probably don't
have questions since you mov them but I don't know if Mr P has any questions about those policies okay um in that case we can um take them as a slate right we take them all together great let's do that um
so I would entertain a motion to approve the first reading and wave a second reading of the following policies bulying prevention and intervention j i o FB sorry admission policy for Vocational
Technical education programs JF a acceptable use policy and Internet safety policy jnd DB life-threatening allergy policy jc-1 and administering medicines to to students J
LCD I have a motion by Miss F do I have it a second second by Miss Solomon um just for fun let's do roll call there's only four of us um all those in favor Miss Solomon hi Mr Pastak Miss Ferrera hi and the chair both
I okay um next on the agenda any other matters right with that then I would entertain a motion to adjourn by Miss second by Miss Solon all those thank you